Other than the awkward touch-based keyboard, the biggest complaint that is made about the iPad is the glare from the screen. The Kindle e-reader did tablets a disservice by having powerful anti-glare technology in its non-touch devices. Now, everyone thinks that all screens can, and should come with such technology.

What most people don’t realize is the impossibility of that. For one thing, the Kindle e-readers are mono-color and not touch enabled. Do you want to play Angry Birds on a screen like that? While technology to make the iPad’s screen anti-glare is probably a long way off. One company has dedicated much of its time to creating a way to reduce glare significantly. Who knows, maybe we’ll be using it in the next generation iPad.

At this year’s International Franchise Association conference, Apical demonstrated a new technology that reassigns pixels, reducing the contrast of images on a tablet screen, effectively making the image brighter than the glare that is caused by the sun. Instead of turning up your iPad’s brightness and trying to find a shady spot in the yard, you’ll be able to play Infinity Blade right out in the open.

Instead of making a display screen that is tinted, or matte, ruining the clarity of the Retina quality graphics, Apical’s technology pulls out high contrast pixels and replaces them with brighter ones. “Assertive Display takes control of both the screen brightness, and of the color of each individual pixel of each video frame, and adjusts these coherently providing total control of viewing experience from total darkness to bright sunshine,” said president of the HSA foundation, Phil Rogers during the demonstration.

From the video, you can see that certain images that are normally dark on the iPad, like a Batman game or a steaming episode of “Lost,” are brighter with Apical’s Assertive Display. The added brightness makes it much easier to see what is on the screen when bright light is reflecting off of it.

Apical could have used any tablet to show off their Assertive Display technology. Choosing an iPad as the test subject was a smart move on their part. If anyone is going to be interested in this kind of adjustment, it’s Apple. Although Apple was not officially in attendance at the conference, it is likely that the company sent over some scouts to see what was happening. With the kind of financial backing that Apple could offer, Apical could have Assertive Display technology in every unit of the fourth-generation iPad by next spring.

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About Lory: Writer of all things app related, traveler of the space-time continuum, baker of really great cookies. Follow me @appaholik